Don't make a mista(g)ke: is tag switching an overlooked source of error in amplicon pyrosequencing studies?

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Transient leaf endophytes are the most active fungi in 1-year-old beech leaf litter (2017, methodology): “To account for potential errors due to tag switching (Carlsen et al. 2012; Sinha et al. 2017), we applied an abundance threshold for each OTU, only above which it was considered to be present in the respective sample (see Supplementary file S1 for details, Fig.”
Lake sediment multi-taxon DNA from North Greenland records early post-glacial appearance of vascular plants and accurately tracks environmental changes (2015, background): “The early occurrence could therefore be interpreted as an artifact of the sequencing procedure (i.e. tag switching, Carlsen et al., 2012), cross-contamination or other laboratory contamination (Willerslev et al., 2014; K. Andersen, pers. comm.).”
Biochar alters the soil microbiome and soil function: results of next‐generation amplicon sequencing across Europe (2017, methodology): “Tagged samples were randomly pooled prior to library construction, to ensure a mix of treatments in each sequencing lane (Carlsen et al., 2012).”